I was relieved to hear from Audrey that there were no newspapers. She told me that a man from her farm had run away but was never found. There were always new men coming, because it was impossible for them to obtain food except what they could kill. In the summer there were always men wandering about the country, but they came back in the winter and were glad to work for their board and lodging. I soon understood this, for when we had exhausted our store we were often a whole day without a morsel passing our lips, and I began to see the foolhardiness of my attempt at liberty. Again and again I besought Audrey to leave me, but she would not. She could always have obtained a meal for herself had she gone alone to a house, but wherever I went I was asked for my registered number, and at first had not the readiness to invent one. At last I told one woman I was 8150. She asked me what district and I did not know. On that she bundled me out and I was lucky to escape detention. When I asked Audrey about the registration she said all men were registered with a number and a letter. The men on her farm had been L.D. Next time I said I was L.D. 8150, and when asked my business I said I was taking my young miss to the nunnery at O. Either my answer was satisfactory or Audrey’s beauty was the passport it would be in any normal country, for we were handsomely treated and given a present of three cheeses to take to the nuns. We ate the cheeses and were kept alive until, after a fortnight’s journey, we came on a dismal mass of blackened buildings. We entered the city, once world-famous for its textiles, and never have I been so near the hopelessness of the damned. The remains of a dead civilisation; decomposing and festering; grass grew in between the cobbles of the streets; weeds were rank; creepers covered the walls of the houses and their filthy windows. Huge factories were crumbling away, and here and there we came on immense piles of bricks where the chimneys had tumbled down. For miles we walked through the streets and never saw a soul until as we turned a corner into a square we came on a sight that made me think we had reached the lowest Hell. X: THE OUTLAWS